Understanding and promoting sustainability through collaboration and science

The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA™) is a consortium of institutions promoting sustainability in agriculture with credible and globally comparable information based on quantifiable evidence. COSA employs innovative measurement and management tools to analyze the distinct social, environmental and economic impacts of agricultural practices at the field level. Policy-makers, firms and farmers use COSA tools to improve their practices and to better understand, manage and accelerate sustainability.

 
COSA offers:

• Global Partnerships operating with a strong local context in each country
   
• Experience with thousands of surveys, electronic data collection systems, and customizable indicators to meet diverse needs
   
• Practical and strategic management data that is necessary for successful investment in sustainability
   
• A participatory process integrating expert input from scientists, producer groups, private firms, NGOs, and development agencies
   
• Experience with the world’s largest collection of agricultural sustainability data to improve project design, analysis, and policy dialogue

 
What is COSA used for?

The COSA measurement tools analyze the social, environmental, and economic effects on producers and their communities. By providing a scientifically-based understanding of what is sustainable COSA tools serve as an effective means of:
• Determining policymaking and donor investment priorities
• Structuring and conducting the monitoring and evaluation efforts for initiatives and projects
• Managing suppliers/supply chains for firms wanting to affect their sustainability efforts or to benchmark them
• Providing producers with practical business-decision tools to assess the costs and benefits of various sustainability practices, especially those associated with the implementation of any standards or certification programs.

 
What are COSA's Core Activities?

• Development of a globally consistent and scientifically rigorous methodology for different crops
• Application of the methodology to secure data on tens of thousands of farms across a number of commodity producing countries.
• Development of a practical business decision-making tool for use by farmer groups.
• Building local institutional capacity with local partners to collect high-quality data on sustainability
• Partnering with the U.N.'s International Trade Centre to create a database for global dissemination of this information
• Facilitation of policy dialogue and successful investment in sustainability based on findings.
 

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) were instrumental in initially launching the initiative. COSA is growing and its metrics are increasingly applied by leading public agencies, private firms, NGOs, farmers and producer groups world wide, resulting in low-cost comparisons, more credible reporting, and improved practices.

 
Now available online:
Food and Agriculture: The future of sustainability (Read more)

Study led by COSA President Daniele Giovannucci released by the U.N. Division for Sustainable Development as a strategic input to the "Sustainable Development in the 21st Century Report", launched at the Rio+20 Summit.

On our current trajectory, severe disruptions to national and regional food systems are highly likely to happen - the main question is when. Exposing unforeseen areas of consensus - with contributions from more than 70 global agri-food leaders in the business, policy, green, and social arenas - the report lays out concrete steps for sustainable and resilient food and agriculture systems. By opening the silos of partisan thinking to invite reasoned discussion, it also exposes areas of disagreement and advances a key set of specific "high impact" areas where smart decisions will make the most difference.